SLC Stakeholder Meeting: May 2016

The 2016/17 HE Part-time service launched on Monday 13th May for all domiciles without issue.

The HE Full-time services in England and Wales are operating well within processing and call handling targets.

As of 02/05/16 SLC had received 572,727 2016/17 SFE HE full-time applications. New applications are slightly down and communications are being issued through UCAS to new students, to encourage them to apply. This is not currently a concern however SLC is closely monitoring the situation.

As of 02/05/16 SLC had received 33,974 2016/17 SFW HE full-time applications. New student applications are slightly up in Wales, with returning slightly down, however neither is of concern.

1. Contact Centre Update

Members were provided with an over view of contact centre performance over the 2015/16 and the start of the 2016/17 application cycles. 2015/16 was a very strong year for the contact centre. The contact centre achieved all it’s service level agreements and is on course to do the same this year however there a number of unknowns which may affect this. This included a delayed start to the launch of the 2016/17 application cycle, the introduction of Postgraduate Loans and policy changes.

Members were advised of plans to continue to further develop the Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) to simplify the customer journey and allow more customers to reset their password, find out the status of their application and receive information on payment dates without speaking to an advisor, continued working on process mapping, exploring the benefits of SMS and Social Media communications, quality monitoring and understanding why and when our customers contact us.

SLC agreed to share process maps detailing the customer journey with members to help institutions understand the process and support students through the application process

2. Repayments Overview and Update

The repayments team has expanded considerably over the last year, with a greater focus on ensuring that student repayments are recovered from home and overseas repayers. The team are working with other government agencies at home and internationally, creating data links to share information to assist in the recovery of loan debt.

The team are also looking to move the process online and allow students to provide details and update information via an online portal. SLC also discussed delivery of Information Advice and Guidance on repayments, and ensuring this is received by students in the right format and at the right time. Customer Insight has indicated students often don’t want to know repayment information at the start of their course. SLC have a member of the IAG team specifically assigned to repayments who will work with the repayments team to develop IAG and key messages in line with the development and enhancement program for repayments.